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Thanx for that info - i'm a bit late in replying but i think many folk took part

Some fantastic news from the Badger Trust/Save Me/ Team Badger:

The confirmed full 6-hour debate in Parliament regarding the badger cull, on Thursday 25th October 2012, to be followed by a vote. This follows on from the e-gov petition posted by Brian May achieving the necessary 100,000 votes
to request a debate and permission was granted yesterday. The petition currently stands at 157,439 signatures and we urge you to do all you can to encourage people to sign it, if they have not already done so. The more signatures the better to show the weight of public opinion against the government’s proposals. The petition can be signed by going to the Badger Trust website http://www.badgertrust.org.uk

It is also essential for people to continue to lobby their MP’s, asking them to attend the debate and to represent the views of the public as shown by the numbers who have signed the petition. Meanwhile, Badger Trust continues to work through the legal team, requesting written answers to a number of questions which have been submitted to DEFRA and to Natural England. We will give you further information on the entire situation as and when it becomes available. We are greatly appreciative of the support you have already given and hope that you will continue to help us to fight on, as outlined above.

Please sign the petition, write to your Mps ,take part in protection rituals, send prayers and anything else positive for the Badgers x

Already had a reply back from my MP. She merely reiterated government policy but at least I made my views known to her. I live in an agricultural county in the South West.
Do let's hope common sense will prevail [as you say oakapple]

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
— Mahatma Gandhi

Victory!!! BBC news just reported that the cull is being called off. Surveys of the trial sites in Gloucestershire and Somerset found far more badgers than expected. This means their target of killing 70% within 6 weeks was unachievable. They plan to revisit the issue next year but a lot can happen in a year. Made my day.

And I dreamed I saw the bombers riding shotgun in the sky, and they where turning into butterflies above our nation. Joni Mitchell

Victory!!! BBC news just reported that the cull is being called off. Surveys of the trial sites in Gloucestershire and Somerset found far more badgers than expected. This means their target of killing 70% within 6 weeks was unachievable. They plan to revisit the issue next year but a lot can happen in a year. Made my day.

Kukl said :They plan to revisit the issue next year but a lot can happen in a year. Made my day

Mine too

Tis indeed wonderful news , and we do indeed need to keep the pressure on

A great article by Brian May -

I have firm hopes that we will move to a wholehearted commitment on the policy of vaccination

We're delighted that the badgers have had a reprieve. That goes without saying. Waking up this morning and realising they will live, rather than die, is great news for us.

It's by no means the end of the line. What we need is a complete abandonment of this plan to cull badgers, which has always been irrelevant. There was never any chance culling badgers would solve the problem of bovine tuberculosis (TB). You could kill every badger in Britain and still have bovine TB in cows, and farmers would be in misery.

I promised a long time ago to help farmers fight bovine TB. I stand by that, and have never forgotten it. I've already been to Europe, to try to open the doors to vaccinating our cattle. The news I got was more hopeful than we've been led to believe. I strongly believe Europe will not stand in our way, once we prove that our vaccine for cows works and once the Diva [Differentiate between Infected and Vaccinated Animals] test – which allows us to tell between infected and non-infected animals – has been licenced.

In recent months it has been said that vaccination for cows is years away. I firmly believe that is no longer the case. The vaccine is not yet approved, the Diva test is not yet licensed. But a pilot vaccination scheme could come in months, not years. This is most exciting news that farmers could possibly have.

All of Team Badger [a coalition of groups opposed to the badger cull] are committed not only to the welfare of badgers, but of cows, and are very conscious of the misery that bovine TB causes farmers. So with this policy of culling out of the way, it will clear us to working directly with the National Farmers' Union. That's what I sincerely hope.

I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who's contributed to raising public awareness of this issue. It's vital to everyone in this country, not just to the rural community. There is a much bigger picture here, which is the whole relationship humans have with other creatures on this planet. I would like to thank the public for rallying around so magnificently, showing that they would not stand for this ill-conceived killing of wild animals.

I firmly believe that in a year's time, plans for vaccination of cows will be so advanced, that it will be clearly nonsense to consider going back to this policy of culling, which has no firm basis in science whatsoever. And it was in danger of alienating the farming community from the public.

I have firm hopes we will move from postponement to cancellation, and a wholehearted commitment from government to a policy of vaccination.

No recriminations, let's just move forward.

I've made that one paragraph in bold - i think Brian May says something really important here.

From the Bagder Trust -

The statement by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs confirming the postponement of the proposed badger cull contained a shameful series of evasions and errors in seeking to justify the killing of badgers and the impractical methods the Coalition proposes to use.

Nevertheless, the Badger Trust still hopes the Government will consider more carefully all the new issues that have emerged over the last few months. The Trust calls for an open and transparent public review of all the issues including the costs, public safety, practicability, science, animal welfare and the emergence of alternatives to culling.

Informed scientific opinion seeks a national bTB eradication strategy which would make clear the miniscule contribution and considerable dangers to be expected from culling.

The Badger Trust puts some of Mr Owen Paterson’s remarks into perspective.

• There is no evidence that the badger population has increased since the last estimate in 1997.

• He claimed the Government had devised a much more effective culling method -- one that has never been tried and which they need pilot culls to test.

• Britain enjoyed 20 years with about 1,000 cattle slaughtered annually. The number rose when testing was disrupted by BSE and foot and mouth, but for 16 years the industry stood out against pre-movement testing.

• Ten times as many cattle are killed for diseases other than bovine TB. Compensation is paid for the TB-infected cattle, but not for the others.

• In saying no other country had tackled bTB without addressing wildlife Mr Paterson, his predecessor and the farming organisations have forgotten that the United Kingdom did so after World War II, bringing the cattle toll down from 47,476 to a low point of 628 in 1979, without killing badgers.

• Bovine TB is not currently spreading. In fact the number of cattle lost – and compensated for – has been falling from 2008 up to last year.

• The disease is not being “left unchecked”. A new range of long-awaited and overdue farm-based measures have finally been announced for next year.

• Marksmen shooting badgers at night will have to kill at least seven out of ten – but the Coalition has no idea how many badgers there are in the first place. Other species do not have to be culled to a specified minimum.

The problems for the farming industry remain unaffected by the statement. They are:

• Keep the public safe despite the secrecy about boundaries.

• How to find the badgers and achieve sufficient ‘humane’ kills.

• Get the farmers to pay up for what promise to be ever-escalating bills.

• How to keep the shooting, the identity of participating famers and landowners secret from criminal activity by protesters.

Farmers and landowners have been sadly deluded into believing in - and paying for - the proposed unholy mess based on a 40-year-old prejudice impervious to science.

Test badger culls are about to get underway. Anyone who wants to oppose them can monitor the cullers' activities and make sure they meet the strict standards set by government: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... 130517.pdf These standards will be hard to meet so contraventions are likely and reporting them can be used to disrupt culls. Contraventions should be reported to defra and, most usefully, the local and national media.

The news is that the badger cull is expected to start again in Somerset quite soon and possibly extending into Dorset. Yesterday we went on an anti cull march through Taunton and it was well attended, with the Wounded Badger Patrol, Somerset Badger Patrol, Hunt Sabs Association, Somerset Wildlife Trust represented as well as groups from the other side of the country who came down in support. In the evening there was a night walk through the cull zone, which we couldn't attend because we couldn't leave our dogs home alone so long and because I have mobility issues. We are intending to patrol the cull zone when the shooting starts to try to save as many badgers as possible. Any help in preventing the cull would be very much appreciated.

"They say the Gods are just a myth
But guess who I've been dancing with!"
The Waterboys